Day 15

ok, so....day 15 of my unfortunate series of events finds me low on enthusiam and wallowing in self-pity....and not for the obvious reasons...our cat, Phillida Erskine Brown aka Kitty, our sweet 14+ year old sickly blind cat who had been living out her days mostly on our front porch due to her continence issues....failed to show up for breakfast wednesday morning....even a blind cat knows where to be when breakfast should be served....and to know when she thinks it is time to eat....we were occassionally awakened on those cool spring mornings by her caterwalling cries of hunger drifting up through our open window from the deck.....i must mention here that when i took her food out to the back deck to appease her, i would occassionally find her atop the deck railing....i would caterwall too if i suddenly found myself blind atop the deck railing....no clue how she managed to get herself up there...but i digress.....she was MIA for her breakfast and has not been seen since Tuesday at supper for certain. My spouse has gone out looking for her on several occassions as has our daughter...every able-bodied c-dub has looked....last night when the rains came i was horrified at the realization that the (probably) dead cat was out there in the storm, her body unfound and that i was unable to put her remains at rest from my chair....contact was made with the humane society in case she had been picked up...no such luck...in my heart i know that her time had come...she was often unable to keep down food, and the hair she plucked out as she groomed did not grow back...she looked quite mangey, but given that she was quick to come over for a cuddle and still purred loudly when she was held....we had decided not to put her down...not quite yet...not when she still seemed to enjoy the life she had left....